Warm Tears, Hot Blood
by queen of the imps
Summary: The only times she seems to love you are when you’re near death or covered in blood. A vignette in Sawyer's second person POV. Spoilers for 3x06, I Do.


Disclaimer: I don't own LOST. Never have, never will.

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The only times she seems to love you are when you're near death or covered in blood.

It seems funny to you, because you spend most of your waking hours thinking about her; at first you thought it was a spur-of-the-moment attraction, that if you waited long enough, you'd forget or move on to someone more willing to put out. But when you look back on all the things you've thought about on the island, and when you realize how often your thoughts drifted towards her, you wonder if maybe it's not just your penis taking over.

But even when you think that maybe it's not just you being horny that makes you think about her, you try to tell yourself to give up. After all, she isn't exactly your biggest fan; you figured that out right from the beginning.

Hell, the first time she looked at you without hatred was when she put a gun in your hand and told you to shoot a man.

Funny thing is, you had fallen hard enough to do it.

You can lie to yourself and say that it was out of mercy for a dying man, but the truth is that you were always a sucker for girls with an attitude. So you shot a man in the chest, and it may have ripped you up inside, but you did it without blinking.

She still hated you, though. But you were falling fast for a girl you'd only known for a few days, and you couldn't help yourself.

When you were tied to a tree and had bamboo jammed up your fingernails, that was a bit of a low point. But you were such an opportunistic bastard that you knew how to weasel her into kissing you. You've always been a con man at heart, and you always knew how to get what you wanted, whether it be money or power or a simple kiss.

Whatever sense of victory you may have had, whatever pleasure you may have taken from the deed…it vanished the second she pulled her lips away from yours. That was how long it took the guilt to worm its way into your gut. That was when you realized that she didn't want this, that she hadn't done this for any other reason than to save a girl who couldn't breathe. And she wasn't even going to get what she came for, because you didn't have what she needed. You had simply taken advantage of a shitty situation, and you'd won her permission to stick your tongue down her throat.

You couldn't blame her when she socked you in the mouth.

The first time she actually looked at you with affection in her eyes was when you were unconscious and half-dead from an infected bullet wound. You found out later how she watched over you like a guardian angel, how she took care of you and fussed over you, while you weren't even awake to realize it.

You still appreciated the thought, however.

She started to spend time with you, still hovering as you recovered. You liked to think it was more than just concern, that maybe she might look at you with more than just affection. But at the same time, you pretended not to notice, not to care, because you were too damned worried that she'd rip your heart to shreds and not even blink.

Was it any surprise that when she first said she loved you, she took it back?

Even as a bloody, barely-conscious lump, you couldn't help but relish the feel of her arms around you as she feebly tried to protect you. And even though you knew how desperate the words sounded, you wanted to believe it when she said that she loved you.

She didn't realize how painful it was to hear her recant them later. You felt like you were shattering into a million pieces before her eyes, but she still looked stoic and aloof.

It wasn't until Juliet told her that you were going to die that she started to look scared. Scared for you, scared of losing you. You hated yourself for taking comfort in that look of fear, because it meant she didn't want you to die. It meant she didn't hate you.

When she was in your cage, crying against your chest, all you could think of was how warm her tears were and how soft she felt to touch, and how you wished that you could just keep holding her like this, and how you wished you could make her stop crying.

And then she kissed you.

Before you could let yourself realize what was happening, she was kissing you, again and again, and it wasn't long before things were moving faster. Both of you were peeling off your clothes, and there was heat, and pleasure, and release. As it was happening, you couldn't help but wonder if maybe you'd already died, and this was your paradise.

When you found yourself holding her in your arms afterwards, you relished the feel of her skin, the way she was so at ease as she laid her head against your shoulder. And everything was so perfect, even when tinged with the knowledge of what was coming. It was that finality that made you ask her if she did love you, if it hadn't been merely desperation that made her say those words as you lay bleeding.

She smiled, kissed you on the lips, and laid her head back down on your shoulder.

You decided to assume that was a 'yes'.

As you held her in your arms and slowly drifted to sleep, a small voice in the back of your head told you to start running, that if you didn't escape, you'd be killed. But you didn't want to let go of her just yet; you wanted to savor this, savor the moment, savor her. Just before sleep overcame you, you wondered if maybe she did it only because you were going to die. And you wondered if maybe she might hold your dead body the way you were holding her then.

When Pickett arrived that morning, the only thing you regretted was the way this was making her cry.

When you knelt on the ground, you tried to be brave and unmoved, even as she screamed at you to stand up and fight back. But there was no point anymore, because they'd just kill her, too, if you tried. And you would never allow that to happen, not if you could help it.

When Jack's voice came over the walkie-talkie, you couldn't help but feel a slight tinge of jealousy as she insisted that she couldn't leave without him. Your stomach churned, but you told yourself over and over again that it was concern and nothing more. She loved you, she'd proven it…she'd meant it, hadn't she?

As you glared at Pickett, she kept screaming for Jack to come, screaming that there was no way she could leave him behind. Jack was insistent that she go, but she was stubborn and scared. She was desperate. So you probably shouldn't have been surprised by what came next.

"Jack, I love you!"

Your blood suddenly went cold, and your vision blurred. You felt a little nauseous, as though you'd been punched in the stomach. You couldn't think or breathe; all you could do was stare at her with wide eyes as she sobbed into that damned walkie-talkie and cried for Jack.

There was a clicking noise in your ear, and if you'd had any sense left, you'd have realized that Pickett was cocking the gun. But it wouldn't have mattered. A bullet entered your skull a half-second later, and everything went black. Before you died, you felt the vague sense of hot blood running down your neck, and you wondered if she was still crying.

The only times she seemed to love you were when you were near death or covered in blood. Finally, you'd found a way to make her love you forever.


End file.
